


go, tell it on the mountain

by intrikate88



Category: Justified
Genre: Christmas, Homophobic Language, M/M, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrikate88/pseuds/intrikate88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's two days til Christmas, and Raylan's been assigned protection detail for a witness on a federal case. That would be bad enough, since he's going to be deep in the shit if he misses his newborn daughter's first Christmas, but there's another problem.</p>
<p>Boyd's the witness in question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	go, tell it on the mountain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moonshine_Givens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonshine_Givens/gifts).



December 23.

 

"Oh, for chrissakes, Art, you can't do this to me. It's Christmas, I got a family to go home to, or a bottle of bourbon, depends how Winona's feeling towards me at the moment. What about Tim? He doesn't have a family. Or maybe he does, I don't know, maybe he was raised by a traveling circus. He can do it," Raylan suggested. Tim, who was walking by the office door, paused just long enough to reach an arm inside and flip Raylan the finger.

 

Art leaned back in his office chair. "And here I thought that you were so dedicated to your job. Even doing it while suspended. Why you in such a hurry to go be all domestic on me now?"

 

Raylan dropped into the seat opposite Art. "It ain't work, it's babysitting. And I don't even know why we're doing the babysitting, when we could just throw his ass in jail until the trial."

 

"Try to at least hide your stupid, Raylan. Part of your job is protecting witnesses until they can get to trial, and none of us likes to be doing Boyd Crowder any favors, but he's in our custody at the moment and you're just gonna have to put your big boy pants on and deal with it."

 

"It's my daughter's first Christmas, Art, you want me to miss that cause I'm holed up in some shitty hotel room with Boyd?" 

 

"I don't give a good goddamn if you're in a suite at the Hilton playing spin the bottle, so long as you do your job." Art sighed. "Raylan, I know it's Christmas. I know we're in the middle of the Bible Belt where everybody celebrates Christian holidays and we all get screwed over pretty equally on that front. We'll work out a schedule for the twenty-fifth so everyone can get some time off. And if you want to take him to the Christmas Eve candlelight service, then be my guest. I just want to make sure this case gets wrapped up and the trial doesn't drag on til next Christmas, okay?"

 

"Fine," said Raylan, standing up and turning towards the door. "So is that a yes on reimbursement for a stay at the Hilton?"

 

"You know how much of a stipend you get per day for these things, you want to treat Boyd to a good time, you go on right ahead. But Raylan?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"I know you might have gotten in the habit, but given that this isn't some little murder trial but a big corporate malfeasance case, can you please refrain from sleeping with the witness this time?"

 

"Wait, if I do, can you assign Tim instead?"

 

"What's this about Raylan sleeping with Boyd?" called Rachel from her desk.

 

"I'm not sleeping with Boyd," Raylan announced to the office at large. Art raised his eyebrows.

 

"Like, not now, or not ever? Because Tim and Art and I have a bet going."

 

"Um, and who's got money on which one of those? I think I need to know."

 

"It'd throw off the betting pool," Art said, "and if you don't get going, Boyd's gonna think you don't love him anymore. I told him you'd pick him up at five and you only got an hour and a half to get down to Harlan, so I better not hear anything about state troopers pulling you over for speeding on 75, you got me?"

 

"Yeah, I got you, I'll only speed when there's no cops around, sir."

 

"Good to hear. Now get on out of here."

 

***

 

The address Art had given Raylan led him to a motel off the 421, heading out of Harlan. Raylan checked the clock; it was almost five o'clock, and he hadn't caught the attention of a single cop writing tickets. Not that anyone on I-75 ever expected to go the speed limit, anyway. He'd barely opened his door before Boyd was out the door of his room and slinging a duffel bag into the backseat of Raylan's car. 

 

"You running from coal company thugs, Boyd?" asked Raylan, reversing and pulling out of the parking lot. "Seem to be in a godawful hurry, there."

 

"Just from the motel manager," Boyd said. "He let me have a late check-out time, but if I was in the room a minute after five he'd charge me another night."

 

"Thought you were all flush with ill-gotten cash, you can't spare an extra thirty bucks?"

 

"Well, Raylan, as you may or may not recollect, I have a fiancée who is currently awaiting trial with some fairly substantial charges laid on her. My funds, such as they are, happen to be all tied up in making sure the lawyer we hired keeps her out of prison. More and more expenses seem to be arising by the day, and after everything else, living at Johnny's bar seemed to be the least advisable course of action."

 

Raylan checked his rearview mirror. There were a few other people on the road, but mostly, anyone needing to spend the holiday in Harlan already lived there. Not too many left to return home for Christmas, since chances were good that if home were elsewhere they wouldn't be in Harlan in the first place. He glanced over at Boyd, who had the passenger seat leaned back, obscuring the view of him from the window. "So what you're saying is, you're broke. That why you got tied up with East Mountain Natural Resources?"

 

"They wanted a few local consultants to come in, check on workflow procedures, evaluate which areas would be most affected by mountaintop removal, that sort of thing. Good money, for a day or two of just looking at potential blast sites and slurry pond reinforcements. Said they was real concerned about preserving natural resources and putting the mountain back just the way it was, after they're done. It's all green-initiatives bullshit that brings the environmental-minded investors in, and some of the government money for clean coal research projects."

 

Raylan snorted. "Did anyone fall for that?"

 

"Only the people you'd expect to drink the kool-aid. Fancy business men who have never once lived near a mine, but had read a few articles in industry magazines. One consultant--Tommy Johnson, from over in Corbin, ain't he your mother's cousin's stepson?-- asked if they had plans for assessing large-scale geologic sequestration along with their production innovations, and those investors' eyes just about popped out of their heads, hearing that from someone they thought was just a dumb redneck who spends too much time breathing moonshine fumes."

 

"Tommy Johnson is a dumb moonshine-distilling redneck, even if he's damn good at making fuel-grade ethanol and converting vehicles to run on it, but I don't doubt it was something to see, for sure. So that's it? You just hung around to be some interesting local color and they gave you money and suddenly you're a witness in a federal case? That seems like a bit of a jump." 

 

"They didn't actually want expert consultants, they wanted records that showed the whole operation had been checked over. Then a week after the investors signed over the cash, a slurry pool flooded the valley and part of Jellico, and contaminated the watershed in both Kentucky and Tennessee, and East Mountain has the paperwork to prove that it can't be their fault and they have impartial outsiders invested in the community who can verify that."

 

"'Cept, I'd hazard, you don't intend to. So now they're pissed, cause it's going to slow down the insurance check to pay off the EPA fine and cleanup."

 

"I'm doing a little more than impeding their progress. I wandered too far during my time around the preparation plant, found that their slurry pool was well fortified, better than standards dictate, in point of fact, and should be completely contained without any issue. Only I also noticed that the main supports were all positioned where you'd place explosives to make a controlled blast."

 

"And is that what you told them?"

 

"Shit, no, Raylan, give me some credit for intelligence."

 

"Well, you did get involved with a coal company, again, by going after the promise of easy money without consequences, again. What I'm questioning is why you have such a dedication to getting in trouble."

 

"Trouble's in the habit of finding me. You too."

 

"Ain't that the truth." Raylan turned off the 119, driving through Pineville. Strings of lights lined front porch, adding some color to the evening dusk, and he had no doubt most of the lights would be left up til Memorial Day, if not until next Christmas. Decades ago when he and Boyd were driving around with a case of beer one of them would've stolen off their daddy, it would have looked just the same. A few people came and went, but this part of the world never changed, not really. 

 

Raylan glanced sideways at Boyd. Some things changed. 

 

It took an hour more to get to the bar with the crappy upstairs apartment that Raylan called home, as much as he liked calling anywhere home. "We'll go in the back way," he said, pulling in behind the building. "Don't want to chance anyone noticing your face, even if it is a busy night."

 

"I appreciate your discretion, Raylan. Wouldn't want folks getting the wrong idea about us."

 

"I don't think this is the kind of bar where anyone gives a rat's ass if I bring a woman or a man up to my room."

 

"That's an interesting direction for your mind to head, though what I meant was people thinking that you and I might be in business together. Could have a deleterious effect on your career, or mine.”

 

“I hang out with criminals all day long, Boyd, and ruining whatever enterprise you got going tends to be the high point of my week. Doesn’t bother me none. Just doing my job, Art’ll get on me if I let something happen to you before the trial.”

 

“I can hardly say I’m glad for the circumstances that led to this, but I am not discontent at the brief interlude to call a ceasefire between old friends.”

 

“We ain’t friends, Boyd.”

 

“We’ve been friendly, even if some of those instances as of late have been friends in name only.”

 

Raylan unlocked his back door and held it open for Boyd to step inside. “Nothing complicated about me being the law and you being a continual pain in my ass. I welcome you to not make yourself too much at home in my humble abode, and I’d give you the tour, but since you can see the whole place just standing there, it’s a bit unnecessary. I’m gonna order some food- you want Chinese or pizza? I only got the two delivery menus.”

 

“Pizza sounds better. I don’t mind anything you put on it.” He paused. “Within reason.” He set his bag down on the bed and opened it up as Raylan called to order the pizza. “I brought something, for your troubles,” Boyd said, and held up a bottle with a black label. “From Johnny’s top shelf.”

 

“Jim Beam Black, not bad,” Raylan said. “Can’t turn that down, though I guess I should only enjoy a bit, due to being guard duty and all.”

 

“I’m sure you won’t let it spoil.”

 

Raylan took two glasses down. “Might as well enjoy ourselves while we wait on pizza.”

 

An hour later, two pizzas had been mostly demolished, and the fifth of bourbon was down to two inches below the neck of the bottle. “Y’ever ponder what might’ve happened if I’d been the one to leave Harlan for college and the Marshals, and you’d been the one to stay?” Boyd mused, looking at the liquor in his glass.

 

“No, I do not,” said Raylan. “But I reckon it we wouldn’t’ve ended up anywhere but where we are now.”

 

“You think we’re that much like?”

 

“Don’t like to,” was all Raylan responded, not answering the question. A year ago, he would have answered it, denied any possibility of being alike.

 

“I imagine you wouldn’t, you taking over Arlo’s business ventures and me ruining your livelihood.”

 

“Shooting our ways out of problems, that what you getting at, Boyd?”

 

“Well, we do now seem to have a predilection for meeting at gunpoint, I will not deny that. But there was a time we hadn’t developed that tendency yet.”

 

“Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Raylan downed the bourbon in his glass and poured another, and propped his feet up on the bed. “We were just boys scared of the dark together, back before all this.”

 

There was a pause, at that. “Wasn’t ever scared of the dark in the mines when I had you with me,” Boyd told his glass. “Not if I could reach you.”

 

“Like I said, long time ago.” Raylan abruptly stood up, and closed the pizza boxes. Picking them up, he went to put them in the fridge.

 

“Guess you forget how you relate to a person over time, given enough years. Forget whatever feelings you had back then.”

 

“Ain’t forgot a thing,” Raylan said. “’S’why I meant to never come back here.” He turned from the fridge, and crossed his arms. “Now, I’d put you on the couch, if I had one, but since I don’t and I’ll be staying up all night keeping watch for friends of yours, you go ahead and sleep in the bed.”

 

“Raylan, I know you do not sleep soundly enough that you couldn’t wake up, get your gun from the nightstand, and shoot an intruder before he even had a chance to fire off a shot. And since we’ve got a couple of days together, you’re probably better off not deprived of sleep.”

 

“Guess I can sleep in this chair.”

 

“Don’t be an idiot, there’s room enough in that bed for two. You afraid I’m gonna stab you in your sleep or something?”

 

“I mean, you could _try,_ but it ain’t gonna get you very far. I should’ve bought a couch.”

 

“Maybe you should’ve, but you didn’t, so act sensible and stop bitching about the bed.”

 

“Fine,” said Raylan. “I just hope you don’t sleep in the nude, or else I’m gonna ask you to stab me ‘fore morning.”

 

“I suppose I can change my habits for the duration of staying with you,” Boyd said, the corner of his mouth twisting up in a smirk.

 

By the time Raylan turned out the lights, the Jim Beam bottle only had maybe one last drink in it. Raylan lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, while Boyd tried to settle in on his side. “Why was it you never came back?” Boyd asked, his words only slurring a little. Raylan closed his eyes, and simultaneously wished he hadn’t irresponsibly drunk so much, and that he could be so much drunker.

 

“I don’t wanna have this conversation right now, Boyd, I really don’t.”

 

“We don’t ever have this conversation. We keep running at each other and one of these days it’s gonna be one of us standing on the other’s grave and asking if we could’ve had this conversation.”

 

Raylan shifted, and looked over. “I stayed away for lots of reasons. I stayed out because Aunt Helen asked me to make something more of myself than Harlan could give me. But I expect the reason you’re asking after is that I didn’t want to face you. Because I was pretty sure you’d be out for blood, seeing as how you wouldn’t leave me behind in the mine that day, but I left you behind in Harlan. Don’t know what else I could’ve done, but you got me out and I didn’t do the same.”

 

“You could’ve asked, if I was resentful over a thing like that.”

 

“That would require calling you, and having this conversation.”

 

“I resented you, Raylan, but not for leaving the way you did. Seemed like you must have never gave a damn about me after all, and you’d acted like you did and I fell for it. I don’t much appreciate being deceived like that.”

 

“What do you want me to say, Boyd?” Raylan demanded, but with no heat in it, only weariness. “That Arlo didn’t even see more than the way we walked down the road together and still told me he’d rather have a dead man for a son than a faggot? That near as I can tell I’m straight as an arrow, but you come round and it’s like a magnet on a compass, I’m always focused directly on you?” He turned his head back, looking up at the ceiling again, because looking Boyd’s direction was too much. “But two scared boys in a dark mine? That ain’t our lives anymore. I got a daughter with my ex-wife, and we love each other but she won’t talk to me half the time. You’ve got Ava, and you’re putting down every last penny to keep her from prison an’ you’re gonna buy her a nice house and a chain of Dairy Queens. I don’t know shit about caring for someone, loving someone. Doesn’t seem like the thing that should make you want to go crooked and do all the wrong things and leaves you lonely, but that's how it's gone for me.”

 

“Meant something to me,” Boyd said. “Means something now, to know I was wrong all those years ago.”

 

“Yeah, well, don’t go telling nobody, or thinking much on it, or else it’ll ruin your life.” Raylan sighed. “I never said nothing to Ava about… whatever it was we had, you think she knows?”

 

“I told her,” Boyd replied, “and she doesn’t care. What she and I got, that’s different, and you and I could never infringe upon what she and I are.”

 

“So what you’re saying is, I’m your freebie?”

 

Boyd let out a short laugh. “Let’s just say that I got no room to complain if Tim McGraw comes through town and takes a liking to Ava.”

 

“I rank with Tim McGraw? That ain’t too bad.” Raylan rolled over, to look at Boyd fully. Boyd never seemed to have a problem looking people in the face. He was the person people looked away from, unable to face his intensity. Raylan remembered times in the mine when their lamps went out and they’d stay still, trying to get the light back on; in those moments, he almost thought he could see flames burning in Boyd’s eyes. “So you asking me to go back to how things were? Holding onto each other if the light went, kissing if nobody saw?”

 

“That’s a bridge under which much water has passed,” Boyd said. “Too much, probably. I’m just asking that… you don’t always walk in the door starting with threats to me and mine, seeing me as your enemy.”

 

“We are, in fact, literal enemies,” Raylan pointed out. “We are on opposite sides of the law, so we are pretty much the opposite of allies.”

 

“Just some kindness in the dark, Raylan, that’s all I’m asking. We didn’t just dig coal together back then, and I’d like it if we didn’t just work on opposing sides of the law now.”

 

“Some kindness in the dark,” Raylan repeated. “I could use a little of that, too, sometimes. We… we might could be that to each other.” He put his hand over Boyd’s on top of the blankets.

 

Boyd turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through Raylan’s. “I hope we can,” he said, and when they fell asleep, their hands were still clasped.

 

 

December 24.

 

Raylan said, “Oh, _shit_ ,” waking himself fully up to a pounding behind his eyes, Boyd’s arm slung across his chest, and the knowledge that he hadn’t bought Christmas presents for _anyone_ , and was therefore going to be solidly fucked for the coming year. Starting with Winona and moving on down the list to Tim. “Fuck.”

 

“We didn’t drink enough for _that_ ,” Boyd mumbled into the pillow. He was sleeping on his stomach, arms out, the one not over Raylan hanging off the far side of the bed. “I distribute Oxy, don’t I? I think I need a couple three Oxy before I wake up.”

 

“You admitting to a crime? If so, I can arrest you and lock you up and my Christmas gets a helluva lot better.”

 

“I was just asking an officer of the law if he knew where he might acquire something to soothe a man’s aching head in a perfectly legal fashion, since the officer in question did keep pouring the bourbon that caused said headache.”

 

“Oh my _god_ , Boyd, do you ever talk like normal people?” Raylan grunted. “Lemme get up.”

 

Boyd pulled his arm back. “What needs such urgent attention? Someone attempting to break down the door?”

 

“No, worse. Christmas shopping. I ain’t done any yet, and Christmas is tomorrow.”

 

“Not even a present for your baby girl? Raylan! Did you not get anything for darlin’—oh, you named that poor girl something terrible, and then you didn’t even get Ermintrude a present.”

 

“Ermintrude?”

 

“It’s better than what you’re calling her.”

 

“Well, Ermintrude is guaranteed to make her spend every school lunchtime pulling her head out of a toilet, wouldn’t you think?”

 

“Griselda, then. Good, strong name.”

 

“Oh, for God’s sake, Boyd. Get your clothes on, we’re going to the mall.”

 

“I changed my mind, Raylan, lock me up and flush the key. Better yet, just shoot me again. Don’t miss this time.”

 

“You know how I enjoy ruining your day. Here’s your vest, brush your teeth, there’s a bottle of Tylenol in the mirror cabinet.”

 

“Is this you doing your job? Because the mall sounds like it could be dangerous. Anybody could be there.”

 

“Exactly, _we’ll_ be there. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. It’ll be fun.”

 

An hour later, after thirty minutes spent trying to just park somewhere in the general vicinity of Fayette Mall, if not exactly its own parking lot, Boyd asked, “Is this your idea of fun? Cause I ain’t having any fun, Raylan.”

 

“Sure, it’s fun. I’m watching you having no fun, and that’s always fun for me,” Raylan said, looking over at Boyd and grinning.

 

“Well, I’m glad one of us is having a good time,” Boyd replied. “Do try to keep less of an eye on me and more of a lookout for anyone trying to kill me, will you?”

 

“I can do both, I got two eyes. You got anything for Ava yet?”

 

“They’re not letting me see her ‘til the day after Christmas, so I have more time than you, but no, I haven’t found a good gift for my fiancée yet.”

 

“Think she’d like something from the jewelry counter? Nice pair of earrings? You got her a ring already, but maybe she’d like a diamond tennis bracelet. Make her the queen of the jailhouse.”

 

“I’m sure she’d appreciate something a bit less conspicuous, and additionally, I don’t believe she’s allowed jewelry while locked up. There’s a lot of things aren’t allowed to inmates. What about your woman? What’ve you got in mind for her?”

 

Raylan looked around, as if a neon sign saying GET THIS FOR WINONA might magically appear, with a bright flashing arrow pointing at something. All he saw was the Macy’s hosiery department. “These look like some great warm socks, she’s always saying how cold her feet get in winter,” he said, and picked up a pair of knee-high heavy knit grey socks with snowflakes on them. Boyd stared at him.

 

“Winona just pushed out a baby for you. Out of her body. For a number of very painful hours, I’d imagine, during which she was cursing your name and the names of all your forefathers. And you’re just going to give her a pair of socks?”

 

“I mean, I did, kinda… sorta give her the baby, right? Half, anyway?”

 

Boyd’s stare intensified, and his mouth dropped slightly open. “What in the _almighty flying fuck_ are you thinking, Raylan Givens?” He grabbed Raylan’s arm, and started pulling him towards the jewelry counter. “You’re gonna get the mother of your child the biggest prettiest fucking stone in a necklace or a ring or _something_ , or you’re gonna need federal protection detail yourself, you understand?” And he left Raylan looking at an emerald pendant the size of his thumb and hanging on a gold chain, as he turned around and muttered something about how Raylan and not him was the one to go to college.

 

A young saleswoman appeared behind the counter, pushing straightened blonde hair behind her shoulders. “Can I help you find what you’re looking for, sir?”

 

“I’m just browsing for a gift for someone special, ma’am, but thanks all the same,” Raylan replied, smiling at her.

 

“If you’re interested, some of the more masculine pieces are in this cabinet over here, I could take out anything you and the other gentleman would like to look at a little closer,” she suggested.

 

Raylan wrinkled his brow. “More… masculine?” he asked.

 

She nodded. “Watches, chains, rings—I’m sure we could find something nice for your, y’know, friend, there’s a good selection.”

 

“He’s—“ Raylan started to say, _not my friend_ , but then realized what she was getting at. “Uh.”

 

“I see he’s wearing a pocketwatch, that’s so steampunk! Maybe you wanna get a new chain for that watch?” She looked down at his hand on the glass countertop. “Or are we looking for rings, this time?” Lowering her voice, she added, “I think it’d be real nice. My uncle and his friend drove up to Iowa a few months ago and got married, they’d known each other forever.”

 

“Congratulations to your uncle,” said Boyd, coming up behind Raylan. “We’ve known each other for going on forever, too. But my friend here is getting a present for the mother of his child, on this particular shopping excursion, so he needs something real pretty.”

 

“Oh! Well, in that case, take a look at these over here…”

 

“I’m going to arrest you. Don’t know for what at the moment, kinda drawing an awful lot of blanks right now, but something,” Raylan hissed at Boyd.

 

“For saving your relationship with your child’s mother, so maybe you don’t lose all rights to see your daughter just because you bought a pair of socks? Is that a crime in this state?”

 

“Keep your mouth shut for awhile,” Raylan advised. “You keep quiet and I’ll buy you some Chik-fil-a for lunch.”

 

Boyd kept quiet, and a little while later they walked away with Raylan four hundred dollars lighter and carrying a box with a white gold necklace with a Tahitian pearl pendant. The rest of the list went fairly quickly; he found a stress ball in the shape of a cowboy complete with hat at a novelties store, and figured that Art would appreciate it, even if Raylan fully expected to find its twisted-off head on his desk one morning. Boyd even found a gift for Ava that was likely to be allowed to her—a pillow with pockets on one side to put pictures in. Both practical, since jail pillows suck, and personal, Boyd explained.

 

It wasn’t until they got out in the parking lot, where the early winter nights were turning dusk into darkness, that the trouble started. (For a given value of trouble. The mall had been packed, and one woman did start to beat on Raylan when she thought he was cutting in the Santa-photo line. The magic of Christmas Eve was surely alive and kicking.) Raylan noticed the windowless utility van parked two spaces before Raylan’s as they approached, and jerked his chin towards it to alert Boyd. Boyd nodded.

 

“So that should take care of the shopping for everyone, or at least everyone for me, since I doubt you’re buying Johnny nothing after all that bullshit, and you really got no family left at this point,” Raylan said loudly, as if they’d been carrying on a conversation.

 

“Well, I got the people who matter, Raylan. It’s about quality, not quantity. I do hope little Griselda—“

 

“Oh, for chrissake—“

 

“Fine, that little Tryphena likes the fuzzy blanket from her Uncle Boyd,” Boyd said, as they walked past the van. Raylan quickly drew his gun, finger off the trigger but certainly close enough as he pointed it at the gap between the two cars, where any reasonable assailants would be expected to lie in wait for them.

 

There was no one there.

 

Raylan exhaled, and holstered the gun. “You are not going to be my daughter’s Uncle Boyd, that’s for damn sure,” he said flatly.

 

That was when the back door of the van swung open and hit him in the head hard enough to knock him to the ground. Three men jumped out of the back, two grabbing Boyd and attempting to lift and toss him into the van, and the third keeping a gun trained on Raylan. The two men trying to get a hold on Boyd were not having the best of luck, since he was twisting out of their grasp like a greased ferret.

 

“You don’t want to draw that on me unless you’re gonna use it right away,” Raylan cautioned the man focused on him. “Guns ain’t a multipurpose tool. You want one of those, you get a knife, or a screwdriver or something. Guns are for hurting or killing a person.”

 

“And if you interfere with us, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do to you,” said the man with the gun. His accent wasn’t local, just like the coal company that paid cash to send him.

 

In one swift motion, Raylan pulled his gun and braced his elbow, squeezing the trigger once to shoot the gunman through the shoulder, and a second time to shoot the ankle of one of the men holding Boyd. The one with the shoulder wound was on the ground, bleeding copiously, but not fatally (probably). “I said, they’re for hurting people, not just standing around and threatening people,” Raylan reiterated, though his audience seemed less than attentive.

 

Boyd’s captor had collapsed as well, his knee bending at an odd angle, but the one unharmed attacker pulled him up and pushed him into the back of the van. Without another look at Boyd or Raylan, he slammed the back door shut, got in the van, and drove off.

 

As the van screeched away, leaving behind their fallen and groaning compatriot, Raylan removed the bow stuck to Rachel’s gift mug and put it on the wounded assailant. “There you go, Boyd. Just for you. Don’t you say I never got you nothing.”

 

“Thanks, Raylan,” Boyd said, sounding somewhat less than delighted. “Merry Christmas to you, too. Not sure how I’m ever going to top a present like this.”

 

“Don’t try, it’d probably end up being something I’d have to arrest you for.”

 

“Then I shall just say thank you, for most likely saving my life.”

 

Raylan paused by the car. “Anybody kills you, Boyd, it’s going to be me. I’ve spent too much time on you to just let anyone else take you down. If anyone else tries it, they’ve got me to answer to.”

 

“That is… reassuring, I suppose.”

 

They climbed into the car. “What are friends for?” asked Raylan.

 

“Oh, we friends now?” Boyd asked.

 

Instead of responding, Raylan paused for a second, unsure of himself, and then he reached out and grabbed Boyd’s waistcoat, pulling Boyd towards him. In the dark car, he pressed his lips hard against Boyd’s in a dry kiss, his mouth closed and his teeth pushing against his lips, kissing Boyd like it was this or a punch in the face. Just as quickly, he pulled back and turned the key in the ignition.

 

“Just some kindness in the dark,” Raylan said, and turned on the headlights, and picked up his phone to call the office about a wounded would-be kidnapper in the Fayette Mall parking lot. He’d just hung up when his phone rang again.

 

“Hey, Winona,” Raylan said, after accepting the call.

 

“Hey, Raylan. I was just calling to ask if you’d go to the candlelight service with us tonight.”

 

“Winona, I’ve got work.”

 

“Raylan, you’ve always got work. But I intend on raising this child right, and if the best I can do is making sure her family all gets together and goes to church on the one day of the year everybody goes to church, then that’s what I’m gonna do. I know you’re not stuck in the office, I talked to Art.”

 

“It’s protection detail, it’s not like I’m doing coffee runs all day.”

 

“It’s sitting around in your boxers wherever you’re holed up with Boyd Crowder, passing a bottle of bourbon back and forth. I’m asking for two hours, Raylan. Bring Boyd along, it’ll be too dark and too crowded for anyone to recognize him.”

 

“I’m really not sure—“

 

“Raylan Givens, if you’re going to not even be there for your daughter on her first Christmas, then you got a lot more to be afraid of than some coal company goons, I’ll promise you that. Put on something nice, and be at my house by seven, you hear?”

 

Raylan sighed. “Okay, Winona. Seven o’clock. I’ll see you then.”

 

He ended the call, and looked over at Boyd, who had his eyebrows raised inquisitively. “So I know you and God had a pretty public falling-out, and all, but I’ve got to stick with you and Winona’s gonna rain down hell if I don’t join her for church tonight. You open to coming along?”

 

"I might could manage that, so long as you have no designs on attempting to save my godforsaken soul."

 

"Wouldn't dare try, Boyd. Already done brought you close to God once in your life, and there’s going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork if I shoot you again."

 

“Your consideration is much appreciated,” Boyd said dryly.

 

By quarter to seven, they were at Winona’s, strapping the carseat into the back. “Mind if I sit back here with little Euphemia? We haven’t had the chance to get properly acquainted yet, and besides, I’m trying to stay at minimum visibility til the trial later on this week,” Boyd asked Winona.

 

Winona looked at Raylan. “Euphemia? Is that what you told him our baby’s name is?”

 

“No, but before that it was Griselda, Ermintrude, and—Boyd! What was that other one?”

 

“Tryphena.”

 

“Yeah, Tryphena.”

 

“Well, can you make him stop?” Winona asked.

 

Raylan put his hands on Winona’s shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “Honey, if I could make Boyd do anything, our lives would be very, very different.”

 

They made it to the church in time to get a parking spot, but only seats crammed into the end of a pew, near the back. Raylan watched Boyd straighten his buttoned-to-the-top collar and adjust his waistcoat, then turn to return the wishes of a merry Christmas to the other folks around him just as heartily as it had been wished to him. He seemed to be able to stand out and blend in, anywhere he ended up, all at the same time. It was the sort of charisma and skill that could have taken him far, far from the mountains of Kentucky.

 

Looking at him now, Raylan was selfishly glad that Boyd wasn’t anywhere else but right there, next to him. Boyd met his eyes, and stilled slightly, becoming something else than the arc of electricity, all bright and hot and buzzing, that he let the world see and gather around.

 

“Merry Christmas to you, Raylan,” he said quietly, and held out a hand like a holiday truce.

 

Raylan took his hand, and instead of shaking it, pulled Boyd closer for a hug. “Merry Christmas, Boyd,” he said into Boyd’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be a good new year.”

 

They pulled apart. “I surely do hope so, Raylan,” Boyd said.

 

The music started, old carols that no one in the pews needed to look at the hymnal to know the words, not even to the second and third verses. Somewhere around the second stanza of “Away In a Manger” Winona turned to Raylan and whispered, “Let me by, I gotta take the baby out of here, she won’t hush up.”

 

“Might I be allowed to hold her? I might be able to calm her,” Boyd offered. “We seemed to get along well in the car.”

 

Winona looked to Raylan, questioning, and he shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to try.”

 

Winona passed the baby in front of Raylan to Boyd; after a moment of Boyd and the baby staring deeply into each other’s eyes, she stopped crying and just blinked at him. Boyd kissed her forehead, and settled her into the crook of his right arm. “See? Me and Euphemia, we get along just fine.”

 

Raylan smothered his sudden concern for his daughter’s future affinities towards crimelords. That would be a worry for another night. Another eighteen years.

 

“If you all would,” said the preacher, as the music changed key, “take the hand of the person on your left and on your right, as we sing one last song before lighting our candles, ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain’, a song about speaking out the truth and living in the hope of something better to come.”

 

Raylan reached out for Boyd’s free hand on his right, Winona on his left. The woman he loved and mother of his child, but seldom his partner; the man he usually hated and loved in one big confusing mess, but would be dancing in circles with until the day one of them died, because they understood each other in a way nobody else ever would. None of them related by blood or even marriage, but this was family, in the way that Harlan and the mountains pushing their lives together wouldn’t ever let them come apart. Raylan joined in the singing, mostly on-key, with Boyd singing out next to him.

 

“ _Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere…_ ” 

**Author's Note:**

> Dearest Yuletide recipient, I hope that you have enjoyed this story, since I've never written this pairing before and was a bit nervous about it. I tried to keep it in character with the characters, the show, and the culture of Appalachia and the South (which is the part of the world I call home). I don't know if this is as non-subtextual a relationship as you were asking for, but since Boyd and Raylan seem intent on keeping their relationship a secret even from themselves, I tried to push them as far as they'd go. But I did get the banter and the baby, and I hope you found everyone as delightful to read as I found them to write.


End file.
